The two major-party candidates for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat faced off in a substantive, sometimes combative debate hosted by WXYZ-TV on Monday.

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Democratic congresswoman Elissa Slotkin and former Republican congressman Mike Rogers debated issues including education, immigration, abortion and electric vehicles. It was the final scheduled U.S. Senate debate of the election season.

Dennis Darnoi, a political consultant, says this election is uniquely focused on the two candidates’ principles instead of their party affiliations with President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump. 

“Both of them have long records upon which to run, they have reputations within the party and within the state. So, it’s not as if they are new candidates that no one’s ever heard of,” Darnoi said.

Slotkin and Rogers are vying for the open seat to replace longtime Michigan U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who is retiring at the end of her fourth term.

Guests: 

• Dennis Darnoi is a political consultant for Densar Consulting. 

• Zoe Clark is the political director at Michigan Public. 

Listen to Created Equal with host Stephen Henderson weekdays from 9-10 a.m. ET on 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand.

Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin faced off tonight against former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in Michigan’s final scheduled U.S. Senate debate of the election season.

The seat is open with the retirement of Democratic U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow and the race will help determine the make-up of the Senate next year. Polling shows the race is tight.

During the hour-long debate held at the WXYZ-TV studios in Southfield, the candidates were asked about the economy, immigration and the cost of health care.

Gun control was a big difference between the candidates. Slotkin said she supports tougher federal gun laws.

“To me, we have to, as Democrats and Republicans, as gun owners and non-gun owners, go after the No.1 killer of our children in our communities and in our schools, by suicide and by accident, and it is the responsibility of our leaders to protect children,” she said.

Slotkin’s House district includes Oxford, the site of a mass school shooting in 2021.

Rogers said he does not want new gun laws and instead supports better enforcement of existing gun laws and improved mental health services for children.

“We need to enforce the gun laws that we have. We also need to deal with mental health issues that are happening in our schools,” he said. “This generation of Americans is under mental duress and distress like I have never seen before.”

The candidates were also asked about their stances on abortion.

Slotkin said she would support setting in law the standard that existed before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that ended federal protections of abortion rights.

“If codifying Roe v. Wade came before the U.S. Senate, I would vote for it,” Slotkin said.

Rogers, who has a long record of supporting abortion restrictions, said he would not go against the wishes of voters who adopted a state reproductive rights amendment in 2022.

“I will respect the vote of the people of Michigan that they put as part of the Michigan Constitution,” Rogers said.

On student loan debt, the candidates agreed that a national service program might be an option for dealing with the increasing burden of educational costs and interest on loans. Slotkin also endorsed a 2.5% interest rate cap on student loans.

Absentee voting is already underway in Michigan so this debate could be the closing argument for many voters. Election Day is Nov. 5.

Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin faced off Tuesday night against former Congressman Mike Rogers in their first debate in the race to fill Michigan’s open U-S Senate seat.

The candidates clashed over electric vehicles, abortion rights and their political loyalties.

Rogers, the Republican nominee who served in the House from 2001 to 2015, described Slotkin as a Democrat too aligned with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

“My opponent has voted 100 percent with the Biden-Harris agenda,” he said during the one-hour faceoff hosted by WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids.

Slotkin, who’s been in Congress since 2019, invited Republicans disenchanted with the GOP under former President Donald Trump to cross over and vote for her.

“For Republicans who feel like their party has left them over the past couple of years,” she said, “you will always have an open door in my office.”

The candidates argued over electric vehicle incentives supported by Slotkin.

“It’s either going to be us or China,” she said. “Right now, China is eating our lunch on these types of vehicles and Michigan has had the experience of missing these trends, right? In the 70s and 80s, we said, oh everyone loves their big cars, no one’s ever going to buy a fuel-efficient vehicle and then the Japanese and the Koreans came in and ate our lunch and we’ve never made up that market share.”

Rogers said that is the wrong approach.

“Why that is a good plan when there are other things we can do?” he said. “The electric grid isn’t even ready to handle it. We’ve got to fix that. We’ve got to make sure that hybrids is an interim step here before you get to the next one. You beat China by selling Americans cars they want to buy.”

Rogers and Slotkin agreed that U.S. energy policy should include wind, solar, fossil fuels and nuclear. They both support re-starting the Palisades nuclear plant in southwest Michigan. It would be the first mothballed nuclear plant in the U.S. to resume operations if that happens.

One issue they disagreed on was abortion rights. Slotkin said she would vote for a federal law to restore in law the Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights that was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court. She noted Rogers has a record of supporting abortion restrictions throughout his political career.

“Every single time he was casting one of those votes, he was saying something very particular,” she said. “He was saying to women he does not trust you to make your own decisions about your own family planning. Every single time.”

But Rogers said the Supreme Court properly put the question back to states. Rogers said he would not support national laws that interfere with Michigan’s reproductive rights amendment that was adopted by voters in 2022.

Polls show the Senate race in Michigan is within the margin of error. It is one of a handful of races that could determine control of the Senate. There is a second debate scheduled for next week in Detroit.

JD Vance and Tim Walz squared off on Tuesday in what will likely be the last debate of the 2024 presidential election. It was surprisingly substantive and civil, but how do you judge a candidate’s performance?

Subscribe to Created Equal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Ronald Stevenson, a professor of forensic debate at Wayne State University, says there are two primary elements that determine how someone performs.

“There’s substance and then there’s style, and it’s how you balance those two things that I think ultimately is where individuals come down and have differing opinions on the outcomes of these particular debates,” he said. 

Stevenson and political strategist Dennis Darnoi joined Created Equal on Thursday to discuss how formal debates are won and whether political debates are judged in the same way. 

Use the media player above to listen to the conversation.

Guests:

• Ronald Stevenson serves as a senior lecturer and director of debate at Wayne State University.
• Dennis Darnoi is the founder of Densar Consulting, which is a local political consulting firm that tracks voter data. 

Listen to Created Equal with host Stephen Henderson weekdays from 9-10 a.m. ET on 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand.

NEW YORK (AP) — In a debate that evoked a calmer era in American politics, Tim Walz and JD Vance on Tuesday went after each other’s running mates and sought to shore up their campaigns’ vulnerabilities at a time of renewed fears of a regional war in the Middle East and sadness over devastation from Hurricane Helene.

Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, and Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio, focused many of their criticisms on the top of the ticket, as is traditional for vice presidential debates. They each pointed to the crises of the day as reasons for voters to choose Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump.

The debate unfolded in the final weeks of a campaign that has been defined by harsh, personal attacks and historic convulsions, including a candidate dropping out and another facing two attempted assassinations. Polls have shown Harris and Trump locked in a close contest as early voting begins across the country, giving added weight to anything that can sway voters on the margins, including the impression left by the vice presidential candidates.

Despite the milder tone of the debate, there were still glimpses of the political fractures that threaten American democracy. Vance papered over the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and echoed Trump’s election denial by refusing to acknowledge that President Joe Biden won the race in 2020.

But throughout much of the rest of the night, two Midwesterners struck a noticeably friendlier tone than the matchup between Trump and Harris — or, earlier this year, the showdown between Trump and Biden before he dropped out of the race following a disastrous performance.

In one raw moment when Walz said his teenage son had witnessed a shooting at a community center, Vance expressed empathy.

“I’m sorry about that. Christ have mercy,” Vance said.

“I appreciate that,” Walz said.

In other parts of the debate, Vance tried to soften his image, ratcheting down his typically forceful and aggressive delivery and acknowledging that people watching might not agree with him or Trump. He discussed Trump’s ideas with polish while avoiding being pinned down on the more controversial parts of the former president’s record. His performance immediately delighted the Trump campaign and many of its allies.

Walz depicted Trump as wrong on the issues and a chaotic leader. He occasionally stumbled over his words, even saying “I’ve become friends with school shooters” when he was talking about meeting with survivors. He did deliver several points sure to please Democrats, including on abortion rights and democracy — even if he never used the word “weird,” the branding he attached to Trump and Vance that brought him to national prominence.

The debate began with a discussion of the Middle East, where Israeli forces are fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran has fired missiles at Israel. In Gaza, Israeli forces continue to fight Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack.

“What’s fundamental here is that steady leadership is going to matter,” said Walz. “And the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago, a nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment.”

Vance, in his reply, argued that Trump is an intimidating figure whose presence on the international stage is its own deterrent.

“Gov. Walz can criticize Donald Trump’s tweets, but effective, smart diplomacy and peace through strength is how you bring stability back to a very broken world,” he said.

A sharper turn on immigration

The debate in New York hosted by CBS News opened with a sober tone that reflected growing domestic and international concerns about safety and security. But it gave way to sharper attacks from both Walz and Vance — and a moment in which the moderators stopped the discussion by cutting the two men’s mics.

Walz accused Vance and Trump of villainizing legal immigrants in Vance’s home state. He pointed to the fact that Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine had to send in extra law enforcement to provide security to the city’s schools after Vance tweeted about and Trump amplified false claims about Haitians eating pets.

“This is what happens when you don’t want to solve it, you demonize it,” Walz said, saying not doing so would allow people to “come together.”

Vance said the 15,000 Haitians in the city had caused housing, economic and other issues that the Biden-Harris administration was ignoring.

When the debate moderators pointed out that the Haitians living there had legal status, Vance protested that CBS News had said its moderators would not be fact-checking, leaving the onus to the candidates. As Vance continued and the moderators tried to move on, his microphone was cut and neither man could be heard.

A heavier focus on policy

The senator and the governor, both picked for their ability to communicate their party’s points, seemed to spend more time talking policy than the presidential candidates have in their matchups.

On abortion, both men shared personal stories of women. Walz talked about Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who was denied an abortion despite developing a life-threatening infection, and Hadley Duvall, who was a 12-year-old girl when she was raped and impregnated by her stepfather.

Vance spoke of a close friend who, he said, “told me something a couple of years ago that she felt like if she hadn’t had that abortion, that it would have destroyed her life because she was in an abusive relationship.”

The senator also said he never supported a national ban when running for the Senate in 2022 even though he had suggested as much, saying instead that he wanted a “minimum national standard.” Trump, meanwhile, posted on his social media site during the debate that he would veto a national abortion ban, though he has also taken credit for the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and clearing the way for conservative-led states to ban or restrict the procedure.

Walz and Vance also talked about housing policy, the economy and climate change in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which devastated several states and caused at least 160 deaths.

“I’m sure Gov. Walz joins me in saying our hearts go out to those innocent people. Our prayers go out to them,” Vance said, giving a far different answer than his running mate, who has accused Biden and Harris of politicizing the hurricane response. “And we want as robust and aggressive as a federal response as we can get to save as many lives as possible.”

The debate ran longer than the allotted 90 minutes, but there were still some key topics left unaddressed by the moderators and the candidates. Vance was not asked about Ukraine, although he’s among the Republican Party’s leading opponents of U.S. aid to the besieged country. No one talked about Trump’s criminal cases, including his conviction in a New York case related to hush money payments.

Vance downplays Jan. 6

Vance downplayed Trump’s assault on the 2020 election, saying Trump had told people to “peacefully” march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The subsequent violence by Trump’s supporters disrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

The real threat to democracy, Vance claimed, was censorship of the opposition.

“We ought to debate our differences. We ought to argue about them. Kamala Harris is engaged in censorship on an industrial scale,” Vance said.

Walz said Vance was helping to deny “the first time in American history that a president or anyone tried to overturn a fair election and the peaceful transfer of power.”

He also asked Vance if Trump won the election in 2020.

“I’m focused on the future,” Vance responded.

“That is a damning non-answer,” Walz said.

Both men acknowledged past missteps

The role of a presidential running mate is typically to serve as an attack dog for the person at the top of the ticket, arguing against the opposing presidential candidate and their proxy on stage. Both Vance and Walz have embraced that role.

But in a political era where apologies are rare, Walz and Vance each admitted missteps and vulnerabilities Tuesday.

Vance was asked to address his past biting criticisms of the former president, including once suggesting Trump would be “America’s Hitler.”

“When you get something wrong and you change your mind, you ought to be honest with the American people,” he said Tuesday.

Walz, meanwhile, was pressed on his misleading claim, which was investigated this week by Minnesota Public Radio and other outlets, that he was in Hong Kong during the turbulence surrounding the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, part of a broader pattern of inaccuracies that Republicans hope to exploit.

Confronted with his misstatements about his travels to China years ago, Walz defended himself by saying, “I’ve not been perfect.” In fact, he said, “I’m a knucklehead at times.” Eventually, he acknowledged he misspoke about his history.

Aside from the contentious exchange surrounding the attack on the Capitol, the debate featured more moments of good feeling than might have been expected. Walz said he’d “enjoyed tonight’s debate, and I think there was a lot of commonality here” before noting that he’s “sympathetic to misspeaking on things and I think I might have with the senator.”

“Me too, man,” Vance responded.

Reporting by Michelle L. Price, Chris Megerian, Will Weissert and Jill Colvin, Associated Press. Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Julie Carr Smyth and Meg Kinnard contributed.

Barring a late addition to the schedule, Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz could be the last debate of the 2024 campaign between the Republican and Democratic tickets.

Both Vance, a GOP senator from Ohio, and Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, have embraced the traditional role of attack dog for the person at the top of the ticket. That could be on full display during the vice presidential debate in New York hosted by CBS News.

Although conventional wisdom says the matchup between the candidates with second billing on the ticket seldom have much impact, polls are so tight that it could sway voters on the margins. It also could be the last head-to-head matchup between the tickets because Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, haven’t agreed to a second meeting.

A new AP-NORC poll found that Walz is better liked than Vance, potentially giving the Republican an added challenge.

Although Vance has said he didn’t “have to prepare that much” for the debate because he had “well-developed views on public policy,” he had been doing debate prep sessions with his wife, Usha Vance, senior aides, and Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who has played Walz, according to a person familiar with his preparations who requested anonymity to discuss strategy.

Walz’s debate prep included sessions hunkered down in a Minneapolis hotel, with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg standing in for Vance, according to a person familiar with the process who requested anonymity to discuss the campaign’s internal dynamics.

In their first and perhaps only debate, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris described the state of the country in distinctly different ways. As the two traded jabs, some old false and misleading claims emerged along with some new ones.

Here’s a look.

Trump overstates his economic record

TRUMP: “I created one of the greatest economies in the history of our country. … They’ve destroyed the economy.”

THE FACTS: This is an exaggeration. The economy grew much faster under Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan than it did under Trump. The broadest measure of economic growth, gross domestic product, rose 4% a year for four straight years under Clinton. The fastest growth under Trump was 3% in 2018. The economy shrank 2.2% in 2020, at the end of Trump’s presidency. And a higher proportion of American adults had jobs under Clinton than under Trump. During the Biden-Harris administration, the economy expanded 5.8% in 2021, though much of that reflected a bounce-back from COVID.

Trump’s record on manufacturing jobs examined

HARRIS: “We have created over 800,000 manufacturing jobs. … Donald Trump said he was going to create manufacturing jobs. He lost manufacturing jobs.”

THE FACTS: Those statements are missing context.

There were 12,188,000 manufacturing employees in the U.S. when Biden took office in January 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Preliminary numbers for August 2024 put that number at 12,927,000. That’s a difference of 739,000 — close to the 800,000 number Harris has cited.

Also of note is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of manufacturing employees dropped steeply in April 2020, by more than 1.3 million. Discounting that decline, there were only 206,000 more manufacturing employees in August than there were in March 2020, prior to the pandemic.

Inflation has gone down

TRUMP: “They had the highest inflation perhaps in the history of our country, because I’ve never seen a worse period of time.”

THE FACTS: While praising the strength of the economy under his presidency, Donald Trump misstated the inflation rate under Biden. Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 after rising steadily in the first 17 months of Biden’s presidency from a low of 0.1% in May 2020. It’s now seeing a downward trend. The most recent data shows that as of July it had fallen to 2.9%. Other historical periods have seen higher inflation, which hit more than 14% in 1980, according to the Federal Reserve.

Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025

HARRIS: “What you’re going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected again.”

THE FACTS: Trump has said he doesn’t know about Project 2025, a controversial blueprint for another Republican presidential administration.

The plan was written up by many of his former aides and allies, but Trump has never said he’ll implement the roughly 900-page guide if he’s elected again. He has said it’s not related to his campaign.

Trump on abortions ‘after birth’

TRUMP: “Her vice presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine. He also says execution after birth, it’s execution, no longer abortion, because the baby is born, is okay.”

THE FACTS: Walz has said no such thing. Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.

Abortion rights advocates say terms like “late-term abortions” attempt to stigmatize abortions later in pregnancy. Abortions later in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Trump’s taxing and spending plan examined

HARRIS: “What the Wharton School has said is Donald Trump’s plan would actually explode the deficit.”

THE TRUTH: The Penn-Wharton Budget Model did find that Trump’s tax and spending plans would significantly expand the deficit by $5.8 trillion over ten years. But it also found that Harris’ plans would increase the deficit by $1.2 trillion over the same period.

Harris’ record on fracking examined

TRUMP: “If she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on Day 1.”

THE FACTS: Trump’s statement ignores the fact that without a law approved by Congress, a president can only ban fracking on federal lands.

The federal government owns about 2% of Pennsylvania’s total land, and it is not clear how much of that is suitable for oil or gas drilling.

Republicans have criticized Harris for “flip-flopping” on the issue, noting that Harris said in the 2020 campaign that she opposed fracking, a drilling technique that is widely used in Pennsylvania and other states.

Harris has since said repeatedly that she won’t ban fracking if elected, and she reiterated that in Tuesday’s debate.

Trump shares inflated numbers around migrants and crime

TRUMP: “When you look at these millions and millions of people that are pouring into our country monthly — whereas, I believe, 21 million people, not the 15 people say, and I think it’s a lot higher than the 21 — that’s bigger than New York State … and just look at what they’re doing to our country. They’re criminals, many of these people are criminals, and that’s bad for our economy too.”

FACTS: Trump’s figures are wildly inflated. The Border Patrol made 56,408 arrests of people crossing the border illegally from Mexico in July, the latest monthly figure available. Since Biden took office, the Border Patrol made about 7.1 million border arrests, though the number of people is considerably lower because many of those arrests were repeat crossers.

The Biden administration also permitted legal entry for about 765,000 people on an online app called CBP One at land crossings in Mexico through July. It allowed another 520,000 from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to come by air with financial sponsors. Additionally, an unknown number of people crossed the border illegally and eluded capture.

That doesn’t come close to “millions and millions of people” monthly. …. It is also unproven that “many of these people are criminals.”

There have been high-profile, heinous crimes committed by immigrants. But FBI statistics do not separate out crimes by the immigration status of the assailant, nor is there any evidence of a spike in crime perpetrated by migrants. In 1931, the Wickersham Commission did not find any evidence supporting a connection between immigration and increased crime, and many studies since then have reached similar conclusions.

Trump repeats false claims that noncitizens are being sought to vote

TRUMP: “A lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote. They can’t even speak English. They don’t even know what country they’re in practically and these people are trying to get them to vote, and that’s why they’re allowing them to come into our country.”

THE FACTS: In recent months, Trump and other Republicans have been repeating the baseless claim that Democrats want migrants to come into the country illegally so they will vote.

There’s no evidence for this, nor is there any evidence that noncitizens illegally vote in significant numbers in this country.

Voting by people who are not U.S. citizens already is illegal in federal elections. It can be punishable by fines, prison time and even deportation. While noncitizens have cast ballots, studies show it’s incredibly rare, and states regularly audit their voter lists to remove ineligible voters from the rolls.

Trump’s comments suggest that not speaking English is somehow prohibitive for voting in the U.S. — and that’s also not the case. In fact, the Voting Rights Act requires certain states to provide election materials in other languages depending on the voting-age population’s needs.

Trump misrepresents crime statistics

TRUMP, criticizing the Biden administration: “Crime is through the roof.”

THE FACTS: In fact, FBI data has shown a downward trend in violent crime since a coronavirus pandemic spike. Violent crime surged during the pandemic, with homicides increasing nearly 30% in 2020 over the previous year — the largest one-year jump since the FBI began keeping records

Violent crime was down 6% in the last three months of 2023 compared with the same period the year before, according to FBI data released in March. Murders were down 13%. New FBI statistics released in June show the overall violent crime rate declined 15% in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period last year. One expert has cautioned, however, that those 2024 figures are preliminary and may overstate the actual reduction in crime.

Trump endorses false rumor about immigrants eating pets

TRUMP: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats… They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

THE FACTS: There’s no evidence to support the claim, which Trump and his campaign have used to argue immigrants are committing crimes at a higher rate than others.

Authorities in Ohio have said there are no credible or detailed reports to support Trump’s claim.

Jobs created under the Biden administration

TRUMP: “Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud.”

THE FACTS: This is a mischaracterization of the government’s process of counting jobs. Every year the Labor Department issues a revision of the number of jobs added in a 12-month period from April through March in the previous year. The adjustment is made because the government’s initial job counts are based on surveys of businesses. The revision is then based on actual job counts from unemployment insurance files that are compiled later. The revision is compiled by career government employees with little involvement by politically appointed officials.

National Guard soldiers on Jan. 6

TRUMP, speaking about the Jan. 6 insurrection: “I said I’d like to give you 10,000 National Guard or soldiers. They rejected me. Nancy Pelosi rejected me.”

THE FACTS: That’s false. Pelosi does not direct the National Guard.

Further, as the Capitol came under attack, she and then-Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell called for military assistance, including from the National Guard.

The Capitol Police Board makes the decision on whether to call National Guard troops to the Capitol. It is made up of the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Architect of the Capitol.

The board decided not to call the guard ahead of the insurrection but did eventually request assistance after the rioting had already begun, and the troops arrived several hours later.

There is no evidence that either Pelosi or McConnell directed the security officials not to call the guard beforehand.

Trump falsely claims China is building ‘massive’ auto plants in Mexico

TRUMP: “They’re building big auto plants in Mexico, in many cases owned by China.”

THE FACTS: It’s not the first time Trump has claimed the Biden administration is allowing Chinese automakers to build factories just across the border in Mexico.

At present, though, industry experts say they know of no such plants under construction, and there’s only one small Chinese auto assembly factory operating in Mexico. It’s run by a company called JAC that builds inexpensive vehicles from kits for sale in that country.

Trump falsely claims evidence shows he won in 2020

TRUMP: “There’s so much proof. All you have to do is look at it.”

THE FACTS: The election was not stolen. The authorities who have reviewed the election — including Trump’s own attorney general — have concluded the election was fair.

Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020 was not particularly close. He won the Electoral College with 306 votes to Trump’s 232, and the popular vote by more than seven million ballots. Recounts in key states affirmed Biden’s victory, and lawsuits challenging the results were unsuccessful.

Trump claims Putin endorsed Harris

TRUMP: “Putin endorsed her last week, said ‘I hope she wins.’”

THE FACTS: Russian President Vladimir Putin did wryly claim last week that Harris was his preferred candidate, but intelligence officials have dismissed the comment as not serious.

U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia favors Trump, who has openly praised Putin, suggested cutting funds to Ukraine and repeatedly criticized the NATO military alliance.

Harris takes Trump’s ‘bloodbath’ comment out of context

HARRIS: “Donald Trump, the candidate, has said in this election there will be a bloodbath if this and the outcome of this election is not to his liking. Let’s turn the page on that.”

THE FACTS: Trump delivered the line at a speech in March in Ohio in which he was talking about the impact of offshoring on the American auto industry and his plans to increase tariffs on foreign-made cars. It was in reference to the auto industry that he warned of a “bloodbath” if his proposals aren’t enacted.

“If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country,” Trump said.

Trump inflates numbers around new military equipment left in Afghanistan

TRUMP, on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan: “We wouldn’t have left $85 billion worth of brand new, beautiful military equipment behind.”

THE FACTS: That number is significantly inflated, according to reports from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, which oversees American taxpayer money spent on the conflict.

The $85 billion figure resembles a number from a July 30 quarterly report from SIGAR, which outlined that the U.S. has invested about $83 billion to build, train and equip Afghan security forces since 2001. That funding included troop pay, training, operations and infrastructure along with equipment and transportation over two decades, according to SIGAR reports and Dan Grazier, a defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight.

Only about $18 billion of that sum went toward equipping Afghan forces between 2002 and 2018, a June 2019 SIGAR report showed.

No one knows the exact value of the U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment the Taliban have secured, defense officials have confirmed it is significant.

Trump misrepresents key facts of the Central Park Five case

TRUMP: “They admitted, they said they pled guilty and I said, ’well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately … And they pled guilty, then they pled not guilty.”

THE FACTS: Trump misstated key details of the case while defending a newspaper ad he placed about two weeks after the April 1989 attack in which he called for bringing back the death penalty. Trump wrongly stated that the victim was killed and that the wrongly accused suspects had pleaded guilty.

Trump appeared to be confusing guilty pleas with confessions that the men — teenagers at the time — said they made to police under duress. They later recanted, pleaded not guilty in court and were convicted after jury trials. Their convictions were vacated in 2002 after another person confessed to the crime.

The victim, Trisha Meili, was in a coma for 12 days after the attack but ultimately survived. She testified in court against the wrongly accused suspects, who are now known as the Exonerated Five. In 2002, Matias Reyes confessed to the crime and said he was the lone assailant. DNA testing matched Reyes to the attack, but because of the statute of limitations he could not be charged in connection with it.

Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin, David Klepper, Ali Swenson, Matthew Daly, Chris Rugaber and Tom Krisher contributed to this story.